Canyoning - Not Recommended for Lifeguards

Today, after numerous recommendations as one of the best things you can do in Dalat, I tried canyoning for the first time - so much fun! For those of you that don't know what it is, it consists of abseiling down waterfalls and cliffs into water (normally a river). A crazy rush, lots of fun, but scary as hell for someone trained to point out hazards. That aside, I'm alive, escaped with only a few bruises and can now say I have abseiled down 25m cliffs, slid down a waterfall (both by myself and in a group), jumped off a 12m cliff into the pool at the bottom of a waterfall and then abseiled down an actual waterfall and jumped in at the bottom. Crazy, fun day, though i'm not sure I'd be able to do it again lol. Checked off the the list and moving on :)

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A stairwell in Crazy House

Crazy House

This isn't the main part of it (it was hard to get a picture of) but it gives you an idea of what this place is like. Basically it's some architect's fantastical dream house that looks like she was on shrooms when she designed it. It's a weirdly shaped house with tunnels for hallways and rooms (you can stay in this place for around $30 a night) named "eagle room" and "bear cave".

Man-Made Lake

This enormous lake is man made - it was damned so that farmers could use the water for their crops.

Wandering through the minority village

The Black Mushroom Farm

So because mushrooms need cool weather (Dalat is quite cool because it's in the mountains, but gets hot during the day) they grow them in these little huts with grass roofs. Hundreds of plastic bags filled with soil and fertilizer hang from the ceiling and get watered and sprout mushrooms from slits cut in the bags (a couple of slits ensures bigger mushrooms vs many slits). The mushrooms are then harvested, washed in soapy water, dried in the sun and then sent off to be sold. The leftover white bags filled with soil are then sent to a nearby farm to be used to grow white mushrooms. I am now a wealth of random knowledge lol.

Us making the best Spring Rolls I've ever had

Nothing to do with me of course, someone else made the filling.

Elephant waterfall

Another put stop on our tour.

Silk being extracted

This process was quite disgusting, though quite ingenious. The puffy pupa thing soaks in water to remove the silk and expose the larvae (2 in a pod is lower quality, one is the highest quality) and then the silk is picked up and spun together to be stronger. Silk is actually very coarse until it's chemically treated.

Said Weasel

This is what it looks like - a delicacy

Yup, I knew that's what you were thinking. This is weasel coffee. Or the beans that will be used to make weasel coffee. It is coffee beans fed to weasels, shit out, shelled (or whatever they do), roasted, then turned into coffee. But wouldn't you know, it smelled way better than the normal coffee. Just pretend you don't know where it came from.

How to Make Rice Wine

So from what I can remember, the rice and liquor is put in the one on the left, boiled, then sits in large tubs and ferments for two weeks then is put in the vat on the right to boil and then is kept at a boil for some amount of hours before being finished lol. I think. Come to think of it it actually tasted like vodka, not wine...maybe it was rice vodka?? Fail again. Whatever it is, it's made of rice lol.

The Coffee Plantation

Vietnam is the second largest exporter of coffee (so I learned on my tour) and depending on which region, they grow three different types of beans... now if only I could remember what they were lol. I DO remember they said that the best coffee was a mix of the three, not a single flavor.

The Flower Farm

This farm grows roses and gerber daisies - switching between them every cycle to keep the soil nutrient-rich. If I had to work on a farm, it would be a flower farm - how pretty is this!

View from the top of our hike

Back on the bike!

This morning Angie and I got picked up from our hotel by two guides for a day long tour of Dalat (Vietnam) and the surrounding area by motorbike.
What a great way to spend the day! For $30 we did some hiking, saw the beautiful countryside (see below), visited some local farms (flower, coffee and mushroom), learned how silk was made, visited a local minority village, made spring rolls, saw a massive man made lake and visited the Crazy House. Pictures to come...

Lakeside Dalat

Dried fruits at the Market

Adorable little Dalat

This place reminds me of Copenhagen with all of the colorful little houses. It's very pretty.

Climbing the mountain up to Dalat

Countryside - Mui Ne to Dalat

Our 1h Pit Stop - literally

So we get on a 6:40am bus bound for Dalat (with an eta of 11am). It is now 8am and we've been sitting by the side of the road at a mechanics shop for an hour while the men here (in flip flops I might add), change all four of our tires. No, our tires did not pop or get a nail in them - nothing happened to them. We just stopped for routine maintenance, in the middle of our bus trip. Yay Vietnam!

Sunset 2

Sunset on the Yellow Dunes

Us attempting to Crazy Carpet down the dune

White Sand Dunes - Mui Ne, Vietnam

What a random country! Half an hour outside of Mui Ne and we found sand dunes:

Resort Day!

Angie and I spent the morning lounging around the pool at this resort, working on our tans an trying to blend in with the Russians :P

Multi-Cultural Vietnam

So it's hour three of our five hour bus ride to Mui Ne and in the past hour we've passed a bunch of socialist and communist flags, a nazi camp, a couple of mosques, multiple churches and a marijuana plantation. This is an interesting country...

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Vietnam: First Impressions

48 hours in country, Saigon for 24h, and here are my first impressions:

A) This place is dangerous! According to Angie's Rough Guide book, 11,000 people each year die from motorbike accidents and a further 30,000 are injured. I can see why. It's like boxing day shopping at the mall and everyone's going every which way except they're are all on motorbikes (with the occasional big truck, van, taxi, bike and pedestrian). It's nuts! There's no order, rhyme or reason for who goes where, when like in Lao and Cambodia where at least the smaller vehicles stick to the outside and the larger ones in the middle and you honk to pass. Here everyone goes where they want when they want and honks at everyone else to let them know they're going there. And to cross the street here you just start walking. No one stops for you but they swerve around you (if you're lucky). It's quite an experience. Adrenaline rush anyone?

B) Not only are there practically no English signs here, but there is a MUCH bigger language gap. Either that or people don't want to have to try to talk to you because even the simplest questions are answered with a shake of the head, a clueless look, or in rare circumstances, a "no English" response. I'm going to have to work on my Vietnamese... Or sign language. Angie and I have learned that telling people we're Canadian gets us a bit better price on things. Maybe they don't want to talk to us because they think we're American? Possibility.

C) The sell-hardiest country of them all? Definitely true. Salespeople in Saigon will all call out to you to buy something and even when you say "no" they'll try to convince you: they'll try cheaper, then two for one, as if just because I didn't want one pair of sunglasses I probably want two? And cylo drivers follow you down the street in the hopes that you get tired and change your mind. Ps they have fake purses and wallets! I'm so shopping in Hanoi :D

D) There seems to be more wealth here, at least in Saigon. I haven't seen any beggars yet or been asked for money. There are even overweight people here, I don't think I saw one in Lao, Thailand or Cambodia.

E) Loving the fact that most things are rice based here and there seems to be less oyster sauce and soya sauce. Point for Vietnam, though I've seen the markets and I may go vegetarian for two weeks. Angie saw a piece of meat fall on the ground and the woman picked it up and put it back on the table with the rest (not to mention that they sit out all day in the heat with flys on them) Yum. Here's hoping or a strong stomach!

On to Mui Ne next!

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Yup, I just ate a whole bag of chips - the big one :)

Vietnam has Kettle Chips! This is the first time I've seen them since I was in the Thai Islands (almost two months ago). Point for Vietnam! (minus three points for the smell and the insane motorbike driving :S where are the taxi's when you need them?)

The Cambodian Genocide

I didn't feel like taking any pictures, but two days ago I hopped on the back of a motorbike (a really nice way to see the countryside, I kind if want a motorbike now :D ) and rode the 15km to Choeung Ek (The Killing Fields) and then over to Tuol Sleng (S-21), the high school that was converted into a prison and torture centre where Pol Pot and his army got his fellow Cambodians to admit to false crimes, then took them to Cheoung Ek and killed them and their families (to ensure no one would seek revenge at a later date) to create a race of followers that were fit for labor (he wanted to triple rice production). To achieve this, Pol Pot and his army killed people with glasses, physical or mental disabilities, monks, educated people, women and children. They were tortured in disgusting ways (how human beings are capable of this I will not understand) and then lead to believe they were moving to a new home when in fact they we're taken to Cheoung Ek to be slaughtered. Bullets were expensive and so they used blunt force and any other available means such as garden tools and nails and then threw the bodies into pits (some still alive), covering them with DDT to finish them off and mask the stench. To kill the babies, they swung them by their feet into tree trunks and then threw them into the pits alongside their mothers.

Nothing is worth this much suffering, not if it happens to one person, let alone the thousands of people that lost their families, we're tortured and starved and then beaten to death - especially not politics. And though I recognize that much of the outside world had no idea what was going on at the time - and that fear (of not joining the movement and becoming one of the tortured) was a powerful driver - I find it inconceivable that this happened during the 21st century and nothing was done to stop it.

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Sunset from our boat back from Koh Rong

Lunch View :)

More of Koh Rong

No photoshop here folks!

Yesterday Angie and I took a boat over to Koh Rong, (2.5h off of Sihanoukville), possibly the last underdeveloped island around, and it was amazing! The beach was beautiful (it was nice to get to work on my tan a little :) and the snorkeling was the best I've seen yet. There were so many colorful and weirdly shaped corals and beautiful fish. We ate dinner at a random Italian Restaurant and we're told that two months ago, half of the development wasn't there. In six months this place will probably look like Phi Phi! It was really cool to be able to see it before it gets so touristy. And the people here were the nicest I've met yet. All the locals say "hello" and "good morning" and/or smile at you when you pass. It was like being in the Creek again :)

Mine and Angie's romantic candlelit seafood dinner - Sihanoukville

Sihanoukville at night

Sunrise from Angkor Wat

Here it is! Angie and I got up at the crack of dawn (well actually we woke up late, rushed to find a tuk tuk and almost didn't make it) to see the sunrise over Angkor. And even though we shared the experience with hundreds of other people, it was worth losing the extra couple hours of sleep :)

Quading at Sunset!

This evening Angie and I took to the rice patties on quad bikes to watch the sunset - what an experience! Not only did I finally learn to drive a quad (yes mom we had helmets, though not much else..) but the scenery was unbeatable. We drove through beautiful farmland, rice patties and villages filled with animals, smiling people and little children that all ran out to the road to wave hello to us. And to top it all off, sunset over Cambodian farmland is amazing.

Yes, I realize this is not a photo of a sunset, I forgot to take a photo with my phone but figured I'd show you what the bike looked like that I learned to ride. Mom, I discovered I hate the thumb accelerator, it hurts my hand.

Prayers Galore

The women in this photo gave us all bracelets and prayed for good luck for us while knotting them. Five minutes earlier we had had another woman say a prayer for us in the main temple using incense - a very lucky day :)

Starting with the poses

Our Entourage

Because it was Sunday, our driver had his kids with him for the day (three girls and their friend in purple) and asked if we minded if they came along. Not only did they hang out with us for the ride but he let them walk around with us for the day while he hung out in the parking lot with the tuk tuk. They spoke very little English but we had a blast with them and got some great photos. This one is early on when they were still being shy.

Angkor Day 2!

Today Angie and I hired a tuk tuk to take us to a few more ruins around Angkor Wat. Below is my favorite one. I actually liked this one better than the actual Ankgor temple because this one had no tourists! (yes there are a few in the picture but they showed up as we were leaving).

Vientiane to Siem Reap

On our way from Vang Viang to Cambodia, Angie and I spent a day in Vientiane and while I don't think you would need more time than that, it's actually quite a nice little city. We found JoMa Cafe and had lunch then walked to COPE, a rehabilitation and visitor centre for victims of UXO's (or bombies). What an amazing place! They provide medical care, artificial limbs, rehabilitation services and help people to not only learn to survive but get back to their daily lives. Really cool experience! After that we took a tuk tuk out to That Louang and I have to say it is probably the most beautiful temple I've seen yet. Unfortunately, I was too engrossed in taking pictures with my camera I didn't take one with my phone. But take my word for it, they were beautiful. Solid gold, elaborate temples with manicured gardens and a massive lying down Buddha. The best part as we arrived right at sunset and got some amazing photos. Really good day.

The next day we hopped an early flight to Siem Reap, haggled a good deal from a nice van driver who helped us find a good guesthouse and then biked to Angkor. This city is so full of contrast. There are $300 a night hotels lining the streets and palm trees and paved roads so that while biking to Ankgor you feel like you're in LA. And then there is the extreme poverty - the beggars on the streets asking for food, the children carrying babies asking you to buy them milk. Last night I saw a tourist grab a little boy because she'd for some reason given him $15 USD (I believe she thought she was buying milk for the baby?) and then he tried to run off. She'd grabbed him and was shouting at him, threatening to call the police if he didn't give her money back. She was shaking him and he was crying. Some other tourists intervened and made her let go of him and the kid ran off. All this over $15 - something that woman would have spent easily on one meal yet half a months wages for someone here.

Ankgor was pretty (an amazing architectural feat, very beautiful) but full of tourists - a little like disneyland without the rides. I ended up having to buy a t-shirt to go up to the third level of the temple (apparantly my scarf wasn't good enough) I was a bit choked, and felt like I was just being conned into spending money, but on the way out of the temple we passed a woman who was clearly down and out, begging. I offered her my t-shirt and she almost cried she was so happy. It made buying the shirt worth it. We'll go back tomorrow to check out some more temples and i'll get some pictures.

After Ankgor, Angie and I found the Children's Hospital and I gave blood for the first time. Another awesome day.

I survived Vang Viang- with only a few bruises and a lot of great memories to show for it.

I spent a total of three days in Vang Viang and I have to say it's been a blast, due in full to the great group of people I was with (same group from Luang Prabang). A tiny little town along the river, Vang Viang is full of bars, restaurants, internet cafes and drunken rowdy 20sthgs wandering around with dazed looks on their faces. Though we tried twice, each time we got talked out of tubing (the river was really low because it's dry season and so apparently tubing isn't much fun) so instead us oldies spent our mornings eating at the Friends/Family Guy/Southpark restaurants (comfy little restaurants that show endless episodes of one of the above series) and the evenings at the bars at the start of tubing playing beer pong (with whiskey), collecting bracelets, dancing and jumping off the platforms. I had my best valentines day yet in Vang Viang, bonded with then said goodbye to my kiwi and auzzie friends and then began my journey with Angie (who brought me a stack of Lara bars from home, yay!) Vientiane today then on to Cambodia tomorrow!

Best breakfast ever!!

This morning I woke up at 5:45am, showered, got dressed and then realized it was 6am, not 7am, went back to sleep for an hour and got up feeling knackered. I was in serious need of a coffee. Charlotte and Kyle found this amazon place and I got a proper big cup of coffee with coconut milk, an omlette for breaky and gluten free brownies for desert. Off to Vang Viang!

Oh Luang Prabang....

In the past three days I: got up early to watch the monks collect their alms, pedaled around the city (two people on a single, three on a double), visited temples, went to the national museum, had a Lao massage, ate gelato, partied with some locals, kayaked on the Nam Ou and Mekong rivers, went through rapids and learned peanuts grow in the ground, visited Pak Au caves, had a waterfight with some village kids, learned how whiskey was made, saw sunset #2 up Phu Si, watched a movie (Drive) in the top of an artsy cafe, got up early to teach English to local Lao people, discovered a place that made me an iced coconut latte, got a new book (Shantarm) to learn more about India and booked my flight from Bangkok to Delhi. Sigh. I love this place.

The Alms Giving

Another Early (and beautiful) Morning

Looking forward to seeing the morning alms giving, a beautiful cultural experience, Antony, (the Auzzie) and I got up at the crack of dawn (5am to be exact) and wandered over to the main street to get a good seat. Turns out, alms giving is at 6:30am not 5:30am, thanks guesthouse clerk. An hour later, nearly 200 monks from different wats around the city (some as young as 8 or 9) dressed in beautiful orange robes walked down the street to collect the offerings. I had been told that they collect it and then when they get back to the wats they dish it out and eat it as one of their two meal a day. I now have a feeling they must get some other food as well because I find it hard to believe that monks live off sticky rice and candy bars, though this may be the dream diet of any 9 year old boy lol. Below is a photo of a group of them heading back to their Wat.

And the night got even better...

Already pleased from finding new an yummy food to eat I was wandering around the market trying not to buy things and look what I found!! It was a whole display of gelato, like 8 flavors of deliciousness that had no milk and no sugar. I got three scoops and I'm going back tonight. Heaven... :)

New Foods!

My dinner at the night market last night were these Vietnamese spring rolls. They were amazing with a yummy sauce of sugar, chilies and lime juice. Drool. It was so nice to find a new food to eat :)

Night Market in Luang Prabang

Yesterday after cycling around the city - two people on a one person bike, three on a tandem (they have seats on the bumper, really hilarious and so much fun) we parked and walked around the food market:

Sunset from That Phu Si

We walked to the top of a big hill in the centre of town to watch the sun set from a temple. It was a beautiful, almost peaceful moment were it not for the other 100 odd people with cameras snapping the same photos lol.